Storm Ciaran brings heavy rain and fears of flooding in North Yorkshire
The Met office say a yellow weather warning is in force
Last updated 2nd Nov 2023
Storm Ciaran is bringing heavy rain to North Yorkshire. The Met office has issued a yellow weather warning for rain which is in place until 6o'clock tomorrow morning (3 November).
Water pumps have been deployed to Malton where river levels are high. Councillor Keane Duncan is in charge of flooding at North Yorkshire Council: "Well the situation in Malton right now is pretty tense, we've seen significant rainfall in recent weeks from Storm Babet, we're now braced for Storm Ciaran and looking further ahead Storm Debbie is on the horizon."
"The weather is unpredictable we don't quite know the implications the storm and heavy rain is going to have on river levels and on ground water level so we are closely monitoring the situation. The key message though is we are on the ground, we are prepared and we are ready to respond to whatever Storm Ciaran throws at us."
Dinah Keal is the Mayor of Norton on Derwent and says everyone is very worried: "Simply there is surface water and there are sewars and the two combined is a recipe for disaster and that's when you get sewer flooding which the worse possible kind of flooding you can get."
"The Rivers very, very high it has been for two or three days now I thought last night it was stabilising but then we've had quite heavy rain this morning, there is more coming this afternoon so it is a very anxious time for people who live in this area."
Meanwhile the Environment Agency has confirmed the Foss Barrier is now in use in York to protect homes from flooding.
Tom Pagett is from the Environment Agency in Yorkshire - and tells us teams are out and about and ready to respond if needed: "We're not being complacent we're doing all that we can to ensure flood defences are in place whatever happens. There has been significant and in some areas record rain fall over recent weeks during Storm Babet that means the river levels are already very high in some areas and ground is saturated so any further rainfall could cause problems in some areas".
"We currently expect the worse of the rainfall t come during the rest of the day but then the situation is supposed to gradually improve, if we have significant rainfall come in the upper catchments across the Dales, while we may see the rain subside we may not see river levels themselves peak before the weekend."